Blunt is a lot like letters to the editor. YOUR take, short, to the point.

You have a voice, now use it.

For more information about Blunt, follow this link.

It’s your turn. Go.

Via.

One of my Twitter pals dug this up for me. I dedicate this to Mark McKinnon.

Via the Wall Street Journal, January 2009. Enjoy:

President George W. Bush entered office in 2001 just as a recession was starting, and is preparing to leave in the middle of a long one. That’s almost 22 months of recession during his 96 months in office.

His job-creation record won’t look much better. The Bush administration created about three million jobs (net) over its eight years, a fraction of the 23 million jobs created under President Bill Clinton’s administration and only slightly better than President George H.W. Bush did in his four years in office.

The chart can be sorted by any of the following categories.

Miss Bush yet?

H/t: rosierifka

This description is about the best in concisely laying it out ’cause this stuff can get confusing.

New York (CNNMoney.com) - Businesses are hiring, but not enough to make up for the massive losses of temporary government jobs.

The economy lost a total of 54,000 jobs in August, according to the Labor Department, matching the revised estimate of jobs lost in July.

The bulk of the losses came from the public sector, as the government cut 114,000 temporary census workers. It was the third straight month that census worker layoffs caused an overall decline in jobs.

But the report showed some improvements in the jobs picture. The overall losses were not as bad as expected, as economists surveyed by Briefing.com had predicted a loss of 120,000 jobs in the month.

Awhile ago, I posted a report that suggested David Shuster might take a job at Politico. I am relieved to report this update:

We’re hearing an impending gig at Politico isn’t likely — Shuster’s specialty, after all, is TV.

I have to take issue with the TV comment, in that if Shuster went to Politico, he could do the on-air pundit thing, as so many from Politico do.

But yes, his specialty is TV, and many of us want to see him there full time.

H/t: Uncucumbered, Hoptoad4

Still seems pretty stagnant to me.

WASHINGTON — The number of people requesting unemployment benefits declined for the second straight week, suggesting that the slowing economy isn’t prompting widespread job cuts.

New claims for unemployment aid fell last week by 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 472,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. Economists had expected a slight increase, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

The four-week average of claims, a less-volatile measure, fell by 2,500 to 485,500, its first decrease after four straight increases.

Even with the declines, claims are still at much higher levels than they would be in a healthy economy. When economic output is growing rapidly and employers are hiring, claims generally drop below 400,000.

Still, some economists saw the report as mildly encouraging.

It appears “that a wave of panicked layoffs has passed, as companies have become a bit calmer in the face of the financial and economic disruptions of late spring and early summer,” Pierre Ellis, an economist at Decision Economics, wrote in a note to clients.

“The stimulus didn’t work” meme needs to be strangled and buried. Ezra wraps it all up nicely, so go check out his chart on the GDP.

The actual data, of course, is worse than that. The blue line is the actual unemployment rate, the red is unemployment without the stimulus under the CBO’s lower estimate of the stimulus’ effectiveness, and the yellow is unemployment without the stimulus under the CBO’s higher estimate:

Via.

Skip to 1:21 for Hasselbeck, even though they cut the vid off right at the good part-

In a long and rambling question that was more of an accusation than a question, Hasselbeck asked President Obama how his administration could “claim” and “boast” to have “saved jobs” when the unemployment rate keeps “hovering” around the 10 percent mark and so many were jobless. After he explained that he believed, and noted that even Senator John McCain’s former economic advisor believed, that, if not for the stimulus package supported by his administration, millions of more people would have lost their jobs (and the country would have experienced another Great Depression), especially those who worked in state governments that were specifically targeted by the stimulus.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck pressed, repeating (a common tactic in attempts to label or associate someone with something) that she didn’t understand how he — and his administration — could say that they had “saved” jobs. President Obama got more direct.

“It makes a difference if your job is one that was saved,” he told her.

The audience of “The View” erupted in applause.

And her statement that “You claim that there are saved jobs, a standard a statement that has never been used before by any other administration…” Um, no such luck Lissie, the Bush Administration’s Agriculture Department did so repeatedly. Was it just me, or did she sound like she was getting ready to cry?